Rachel Shearer, also known as New Zealand's Lovely Midget, is most likely of normal human stature. I have no photographic evidence of this fact nearby, but I'm willing to make the logical leap needed to make such a statement. In addition, I feel confident saying that North Head, Shearer's debut American full-length release is an album that should garner enough praise to ensure that it won't be her last release on this side of the pond. Sure, having material released by Thurston Moore and Bruce Russell is enough to get people interested, by Shearer's delicate filaments of silken sound are enough to keep anyone's attention. Recorded over two years, North Head is a canvas painted with subtle hues, wavy textures, and the occasional brash strokes of bold color. Softly and slowly, Lovely Midget winds a chord of smooth sounds though the crevices of the listener's brain using guitar, violin, voice, and doses of delay. Her music, however, and most importantly, spends much of its time floating through hazy clouds of sound or delving deep into an aural ocean, usually forsaking "normal" instrumental output and keeping the focus not on the music and not the technique behind it, which is Shearer's best weapon. Detached, girlish voices and some stark guitar playing bring things down to level ground, but not always in a bad way, though Lovely Midget is still loveliest when charting what seem to be worlds unknown to conventional players of the instruments she plays. North Head might seem to mine the same territory repeatedly, but there's a simplicity and forthrightness to Lovely Midget's music that makes this easy to ignore at times, allowing the listener to envelop themselves completely in the beautiful moments that North Head is surely not short on.
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